


Icing

by Ewebie



Series: Tumblr Shorts [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Smut, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of Mrs Hudson and Molly and Greg and Mike, Misappropriation of baking materials, Sherlock... that really isn't what icing is for..., Tiny bit of angst but it's all good in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:22:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5483147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewebie/pseuds/Ewebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the handwritten pressie I mailed out (I had to type it first... otherwise there would have been a mess on paper... no not that kind of mess you perverts). Happy Christmas!</p>
<p>
  <i>“If they’re truly our friends, they understand that it’s all part of the package. And the body parts are not festering; I’m studying decay rates of various enzyme treated tissues.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“That is the same thing!”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“But you hate Christmas!”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Why do you keep saying that? I don’t hate Christmas!” John barked.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hudders-and-hiddles (rivndellelf)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hudders-and-hiddles+%28rivndellelf%29).



“But you hate Christmas,” Sherlock groaned.

John frowned and snapped the tartan quilt out to clear the dust before folding it crisply and replacing it over the back of his chair. “I don’t.”

“You do,” Sherlock insisted, rolling onto his back so he could stare at the ceiling.

“I do not.” John insisted, punching the union jack pillow perhaps a bit more aggressively than necessary. “Besides. This isn’t about me. This is about having a pleasant drink with a few close friends to celebrate surviving each other another year.”

Sherlock scoffed.

“Sherlock,” John said briskly, crossing his arms. “We agreed to do this a month ago. You told Mrs. Hudson that you were happy to have her up for drinks and snacks. And you said to go ahead and invite whomever. So don’t sulk about it the morning of!”

“But you hate Christmas,” Sherlock hissed, sitting up rapidly and swinging his legs to the floor. “Why pretend?”

“Because we like our friends. And we like that Greg tolerates you well enough to call you in on cases. And we like Molly’s endless supply of entertainment. And we like Mike’s access to the lab. And we like Mrs. Hudson. And we want to enjoy the holiday, and enjoy their company, and enjoy our flat sans toxic experiments and festering body parts!” John ended with a huff.

“If they’re truly our friends, they understand that it’s all part of the package. And the body parts are not festering; I’m studying decay rates of various enzyme treated tissues.”

“That is the same thing!”

“But you _hate_ Christmas!”

“Why do you keep saying that? I don’t hate Christmas!” John barked.

“You do!” Sherlock gestured wildly with his hands. “You hate the crowds that block you everywhere you go. You hate the gaudy lights and horrible excess of the season. You hate the bratty children demanding useless things of parents whom cannot provide them. You hate the sweets. You hate the extra illness. You hate the cold. You hate not being able to get to and from work without being smushed in the tube. You hate the insensibility of the whole thing.”

“Shut up, Sherlock.”

“You hate the snow when it makes you unsteady. You hate the heart attacks and the bitterness. You hate that Harry gets drunk before she calls you, if she calls you. You hate that everyone talks about family togetherness when you never experienced that as a child.”

“Stop it!”

“You hate that it reminds you of the worst of your father. You hate that your mother was always depressed. You hate that you never wanted to go home from Uni for the spare holiday weeks. You hate the four years you spent in the desert with a cactus for a Christmas tree and dying soldiers adding to the festive colors. You hate that first Christmas here, with the cancelled plans and the morgue and the horrible presents. You hate the two-”

“THAT IS ENOUGH!”

Sherlock snapped his mouth shut with an audible click. The times that John Watson yelled, well and truly raised his voice, were few and far between. And right now, John Watson was angry enough that the ire was coming off of him in waves. Sherlock studied him intently for the brief moment he had, before John was deflating.

“That’s enough,” he growled, snatching his jacket from the peg and stalking towards the door. “Clean up the body parts!” The door snapped shut in his wake. Then the front door slammed hard enough to rattle the window fittings.

Sherlock grumbled and fisted both hands in his hair. “Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“WooHoo!”

Sherlock groaned and flopped backwards on the sofa.

“Always the fighting with you two this time of year, Sherlock?” Mrs. Hudson chided. “Aw, I thought you would have decorated.”

“Artifical, gleaming baubles everywhere? Dull.”

“Sherlock, it’s Christmas.”

“So I’ve been repeatedly reminded,” he grumbled. “John hates Christmas.”

“He doesn’t,” Mrs. Hudson tutted, pouring out a cup of tea for him.

“He does,” Sherlock frowned.

“Just because he doesn’t have happy memories of the holiday, doesn’t mean he hates it,” she scolded, then glanced around at the mess and lack of festive decoration. “Really could be less dour in here,” she muttered absently.

~o~

John shoved his arms into his jacket and tugged it closed against the wind and the bite of what might be a coming frost. Bloody cold. He stalked away from the flat in whichever direction he was already headed. Twice he was nearly knocked from the pavement by pedestrians with oversized packages, once he narrowly avoided being clocked by a tree propped on someone’s shoulder. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and grumbled to himself and kept walking. And after thundering through Reagent’s Park and down the Marylebone and a horribly chosen detour around Edgware via Paddington – honestly, what was he thinking with that – he gave up and dropped onto a bench in the middle of Hyde Park.

He could hear the shouts and laughs and smell the food and drink wafting up from the Christmas village and he sighed. What was he doing? He groaned and buried his face in his hands and started to unravel the knot of anger in his gut. It wasn’t just anger, it was pain and guilt as well. God, maybe he did hate Christmas. He sniffed and sighed and shifted his shoulders. It was actually bitterly cold. He sniffed again. Well, sod it. Grinch or not, he’d make the best of it, even if their friends would only marginally enjoy it.

They’d need alcohol and snacks. They’d need something resembling decorations. They’d need a tree, even if it was only a token one. So John stood, squared his shoulders, and prepared to do battle with the Christmas crowd of shoppers.

~o~

It took him five hours to make it back to Baker Street. Well, five hours after he decided to stop moping and start collecting the necessities for their get-together. And by the time John was standing outside the front door, balancing multiple bags and one pathetically sparse little tree, he was absolutely exhausted and considering calling the whole thing off again. He juggled his burdens, managed to open the door, and spill himself and the packages inside before nearly toppling over. His shoulder was aching, his head was pounding, and more than once, he’d considered stopping on a bench and cracking open one of the bottles of spirits.

“Sherlock?”

The front hall was dim in the late winter afternoon, and the whole flat seemed uncomfortably still.

“Sherlock!” John called again. “Stop thinking and come help me with these!”

There was no response. John sighed heavily and started up the stairs. Right. Ok. He’d just… haul everything upstairs himself, and set up for this party, and clean the flat, and host, and deal with paying for all the decorations and gifts that he really couldn’t afford, and… He stopped. And took a deep breath. Was that mulled wine?

For once, the smell emanating from their flat wasn’t offensive. It smelled… It smelled like spice, like gingerbread, like shortbread, like mulled wine, and pine. “Sherlock?” John elbowed his way into the sitting room and froze.

Oh.

“Oh,” he breathed.

It took a few moments to take it all in, to understand the six-foot tree with crisp, white fairy lights and delicate red baubles; to see the garland with ribbon and lights on the mantle; to appreciate the candle lights in their windows; to recognize the crimson sheets tucked carefully around the couch cushions as protective and themed; to notice the santa hat on Billy the skull. And a plate full of biscuits, neatly and decoratively iced, sitting on the middle of the coffee table, and poinsettia on the hearth, and the soft orchestral Christmas music humming out of hidden speakers, and the fire burning warmly, and the whole place smelled like Christmas, but like home.

“John?”

He blinked at the kitchen entryway. Sherlock. “What? What did you… How…” He heaved a deep breath and started setting down the bags and the pathetic looking tree. “I was only gone a few hours. How did you manage…”

“Please, John. You know very well that I can be productive when I chose, and mindless activities, while dull and tedious can be achieved in rather short order if required, and…” he shifted uncomfortably.

A smile broke over John’s face. “What on earth are you wearing?”

Sherlock’s nose wrinkled as he tugged on the hem of his sweater. “I’ve been told that… Festive occasions require…”

“Horrid Christmas jumpers?” John raised both brows. “And… antlers with bells?”

“Perhaps.” Sherlock flushed. “It’s. That’s not relevant. Please tell me you did not spend money on that Charlie Brown Christmas tree.”

John opened his mouth to answer, but stopped as if he’d lost the rebuke, or bitten back the sarcasm, or clamped down on something sour in favor of something warmer. “I didn’t think I’d be coming home to…” He gestured helplessly at the room.

Sherlock stopped just shy of being completely hesitant. “It’s. Is this alright?”

“Sherlock…” he sighed. “Course it’s alright. It looks… It’s perfect.” John frowned at the bags at his feet, before lifting his eyes back to Sherlock. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“You think I hate Christmas. You hate Christmas,” John mumbled.

Sherlock was in front of him in a flash, closer than expressly necessary, and an intense expression on his face. “I do,” he said frankly, fumbling on before John could interrupt him. “And so do you. But you don’t want to. And you try not to. And you want other people not to. And you want me not to. And the lengths you will go to see to it that everyone is well tended and content is a marvel, but not something I like to share. But more than anything, and in spite of all evidence you’ve survived to the contrary, you… You still have hope.”

John thought the soft expression that crossed Sherlock’s face might actually break him. “Sherlock.”

“So yes, I hate Christmas. This is entirely self-serving. And not something I’d endeavor to attempt to please anyone other than you.”

The first laugh sounded as though it’d been punched out of him. But the second was stronger, and he closed a hand in Sherlock’s truly hideous Christmas jumper and tugged him close. “This jumper is horrid,” John giggled as he pressed a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth.

“No worse than any number of jumpers I’d find in your wardrobe,” Sherlock deadpanned.

John grinned brightly, “Shut up.”

“Make m-”

And John shut him up. Grabbing a fist full of dark curls, John pressed firmly against the plush lips in front of him, sucking the words and the breath and muted laughter straight from Sherlock’s mouth and tasting them across his tongue. “You,” he tightened his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, breathing praise across his lips, “beautiful genius.” John leaned up onto his toes, simultaneously pulling Sherlock against him and pressing him backwards and they stumbled towards the kitchen in a tangled shuffle of limbs and lips.

Sherlock huffed out a completely unoffended snort as the tops of his thighs collided with the table. “John,” he groaned as his mouth was freed in favor of the column of his neck. Oh, that was lovely. He moaned as teeth scraped his collarbone. “John, there is flour all over the table.”

Warm fingers crept beneath the jumper and his shirt as John nosed along his collar. “I thought you were going to clean.”

Sherlock groaned and used both hands to pull John’s hips bodily against his. “If you’d like to stop, I could certainly…” His words cut off sharply as John’s teeth closed dangerously over his earlobe.

“Shut up, Sherlock,” John growled into the same ear, finding new interest in the soft patch of skin under Sherlock’s jaw. Sherlock swallowed heavily and rested his weight back on the table, not quite sitting on the solid bit of furniture. It brought them to equal height as John slotted himself in the space between Sherlock’s legs.

Between the heat from the fireplace and the dissipating oven warmth, the kitchen was warmer than usual and Sherlock was too aware of the numerous layers of clothing that separated them. He struggled to free his hands from beneath John’s jacket and pushed roughly at the shoulders until John took the hint and released Sherlock long enough to strip the jacket and his own jumper. Then he attacked Sherlock’s mouth with renewed vigor, pressing Sherlock’s weight back far enough that he needed a hand to steady himself.

The shifting jostled the antlers and the small bells jingled merrily with the movement and John caught Sherlock’s hand before he could remove the headband. “No, leave them on,” John’s lips moved against Sherlock’s in a low murmur before sealing them together again in a heated twist of tongues and muted chuckles.

It was absurd, and Sherlock tried to say so, but John’s hand were back under the jumper and at his belt, slipping the leather out of its buckle and sliding it free from one belt loop at a time. The sound of metal clunking against the floor reminded Sherlock that John still had his shirt on, and that shirt had buttons, and he scrambled to release them before John could do away with the trousers. “Off!” Sherlock plucked at John’s vest with a snarl.

John gave a hum low in his throat before pulling far enough back to shuck his shirt and vest. “Up,” he responded, his thumbs dug into the waistband of Sherlock’s trousers and pants. Sherlock planted both palms on the table and made a face that John ignored, tugging both articles of clothing down to Sherlock’s knees and resuming his place between Sherlock’s thighs, stepping on the material to pin it to the floor.

“Wait, John,” Sherlock objected in a puff of air, pulling his hand free of the icing bowl that had been occupying the table behind him. Holding his hand out in caution as icing slid down his fingers and across his palm.

John captured the offending wrist, his eyes lighting up with heat and mischief. Without second thought, he drew the first two fingers into his mouth and sucked. Sherlock felt his spine tingle as he watched John slowly slide the digits between his lips and peck a kiss to each finger pad. “I don’t care,” he whispered, knowing full well that things were likely to get messy.

It was a mad scramble from that point on. Sherlock managed to open John’s jeans as John grabbed two handfuls of Sherlock’s arse, grinding their hips together in a slow, heated friction. Sherlock moaned and clutched at whichever parts of John fascinated him for the moment, his hair, the nape of his neck, his cheek, his ‘other’ cheek, his shoulder. John preferred to lick and nibble his way across Sherlock’s throat, nip at his ear, his lower lip, his chin, sliding palms beneath gaudily decorated wool and scoring his fingertips down too prominent vertebra. Until Sherlock reached between them, closing his hand around John’s cock with a warm, squelching sound.

John’s hips stuttered at the odd texture and he huffed out a laugh. “Is that icing?”

Sherlock tried to capture the chuckles, taste them on his tongue along with the flavor of the icing that John had sucked off of his fingers. “You said you didn’t care.”

It was a mixture of a groan and whimpered assent as John insinuated his own fingers between Sherlock’s, his added grip allowing their cocks to slide against each other. “Don’t care,” John ground out. “Fucking brilliant.” Sherlock’s forehead dropped heavily against John’s bare shoulder with a low moan and John had to smother another bout of laughter as he narrowly avoided an antler in the eye, and the bells chimed merrily, and he kept their joined hands moving at a steady, firm pace. The graininess of the icing softening into something sticky and wet with the leak of pre-cum gathering in their fists.

Sherlock purred, a deep rumbling in his chest that came out as a long series of cuss words mixed with John’s name. And the whole thing came across as pornographic as the tone shuddered down John’s spine and he found himself pumping his hips faster, meeting the increasing speed of Sherlock’s fist.

“Come on, Sherlock,” John nosed against Sherlock’s ear. “Let go, love.”

“John,” Sherlock panted, taking up a rapid-fire litany of his name that John muted with a firm crush of lips, his fingers twisting into the curls at the nape of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock bucked unsteadily, losing his rhythm with a shudder of breath and a long, loud moan. He gave the last shred of conscious thought to pressing his mouth to John’s pulse, laving the spot with his tongue, and the gentle scrape of teeth. “Happy Christmas.”

John came with a shout, spilling over their knuckles, his hand tightening as he pressed forward against Sherlock. “Sherlock,” he gasped. Sherlock followed him with a violent shudder as the bliss slammed into him. And in a moment, they were leaning against each other, panting heavily, loose limbed and sated for the moment. John snorted a chuckle against Sherlock’s temple, his post-orgasm high leaving him rather senseless. “Icing,” he muttered with a laugh.

Sherlock smiled and straightened, arching his back and stretching like a well contented cat. He hummed and raised his eyes to meet John’s, a small smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “Icing.” Then he lifted his hand and licked at the mess. “Which you also have all over,” he gestured at John. At the trail of icing he’d left in John’s hair, his cheek, his neck, his chest, his ‘other’ cheek. He leaned forward and carefully removed a smudge from John’s jawline with his tongue. “Suits you.”

John shivered and huffed against Sherlock’s shoulder. “You are a dangerous man.”

Sherlock raised a brow. “And you really ought to shower before we have company.”

It wasn’t a terribly difficult decision; after all, he had icing in his hair. But John left the shower quickly and dressed, intending to help Sherlock tidy the kitchen, only to find the kitchen clean by the time he emerged and the bags tucked away and the hideous jumper draped over John’s chair. John tugged it on without second thought, the thing hanging a bit too loosely on his shorter frame. “How do I look?” he held his arms out for Sherlock’s inspection as he emerged from the bedroom.

Sherlock circled him once and grinned wickedly. “Good enough to eat.”

John’s pupils blew wide as he wet his lips absently. “Still wearing the antlers?” Sherlock had changed into deep green shirt and black slacks, the antlers the only thing out of place, perched atop messy curls.

The doorbell rang loudly and they both startled. “That’ll be Molly,” Sherlock muttered absently. “And you said to leave them on.” And they were twisted around a knotted series of ringlets and he couldn’t get them free.

John heaved a breath. This party was going to be torture. “I’ll let her in, shall I?”

“Mmn,” Sherlock nodded, finding it difficult not to begrudge their soon to be guests. “I do think I’m starting to get into the spirit, John.”

It was hard to hate Christmas after that…


End file.
